


Steal My Heart

by ziegler



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Crushes, F/F, Femslash, First Love, Fluff, Kissing, Marihilda, Mentions of alcohol, Pre and Post Timeskip, Romance, Yuri, claude is team marihilda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-23 06:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23007268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziegler/pseuds/ziegler
Summary: Marianne has always been in love with Hilda, and reflects on the three big moments that made her realize that along the way.
Relationships: Marianne von Edmund/Hilda Valentine Goneril
Comments: 6
Kudos: 102





	Steal My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> i've had this idea rattling around in my gay brain for a little while ever since i saw marianne and hilda's first support together. some parts of it are loosely based around or inspired by the supports but i took a Lot of liberties with them haha. enjoy!

The first time Marianne gets to spend any time with Hilda at all, it's in the middle of being assigned a dumb chore.

Cleaning. _God_ , she'd never been any good at _that_ , and let alone around the cutest girl from her class. Claude seemed to give her a wink and a nudge when he saw them walking off, to which Marianne replied, involuntarily as always, with a quiet yelp. _Does he know?_ She thought to herself, and a huge part of her hopes that Claude von Riegan, of _all_ people, does not know that she has a crush on Hilda.

As she walked the halls of the monastery, she can already feel that her palms are clammy enough where she just _knows_ she's going to drop some books, and how do you even arrange books adequately, anyway? Not to mention she's pretty sure that her hair is all out of place, windswept from the walk over here, and her mouth is even dryer than it usually is with all of the anxiety of trying to remain composed.

In front of her, meanwhile, Hilda Valentine Goneril is grumbling angrily to herself, stomping ahead with loud, pointed clicks of her shoes, and the slender hands that Marianne likes to steal glances at sometimes are now curled up into little balls at the sides of her skirt. Even as she walks, she can smell her perfume wafting backwards from the force of how strongly she walks; light, irresistable and girly, with a sharp edge to it. Just like Hilda, really.

“Hilda, clean the library, they said. It won't be anything too strenuous, they said! _Ugh_! I'm busy with my own stuff! Don't people recognize that?!” She whined, and opened the library door with a huge bang. “This is _soooo_ stupid. Why are we even here? Don't you agree, Marianne?”

“Um...”

“I can't believe it. All I wanted to do was go get some more pastries and go back to my room, but no. I don't even use the stupid library that much! Why would I ever need to be here?!”

Marianne opened her mouth as if to say something, before closing it quietly again without a syllable from her lips. Hilda, enraged that she had actually been made to do something, continued to stomp around the library floor; animatedly waving her arms around in dismay.

“And as if _that_ wasn't bad enough,” she continued, “I'm not gonna be able to go and hang out with Annette and Mercedes now! Ugh!”

Marianne remained silent, slightly dejected, and folded her arms. What could she even say? Of course Hilda wouldn't want to hang out with her. But despite her silence, Hilda sighed resignedly; now thoroughly happy with how much she had exhausted herself through ranting, and Marianne felt her back stiffen as she turned her gaze towards the quiet girl at her side.

“You do agree with me, right, Marianne?”

“M-Me? Oh, um...” Marianne began with a start, and wrung her hands together. “I...well, actually, I don't mind the library...”

“Oh! You don't?” Hilda replied in surprise. “Well, you do look like someone who'd be good at cleaning...I guess you wouldn't mind taking it all on your own, right? I mean, I'd just weigh you down and get on your nerves, I'd bet.”

“Well, I -”

“That's great! I'll see you later then? I'll even bring you back a little something.”

Marianne blushed. A gift from Hilda? All for something she'd probably have ended up doing on her own anyway? Today just got better and better.

“O...Okay!” Marianne announced, and looked quickly away at the ground to hide her blush. “I'll be here.”

“You're a star!” Hilda exclaimed warmly, rushing over to place her shoulders momentarily on Marianne's shoulders, and pecked her on the cheek. “See you later, then!”

Turning with a whoosh and rushing out of the library, Marianne stood, dumbfounded, for what must have been at least five minutes. Pressing a hand to her scorching cheek, she could feel the slight, sticky patch where Hilda's subtle lipgloss had left its residue, and part of her never wanted to wash this cheek again.

After that day, Marianne felt deeply embarrassed remembering the ways she had completely disorganized the entire library, and ended up inconveniencing Hilda in the first place anyway. Somehow, after all of that, Hilda actually still wanted to be friends, and for that small mercy, Marianne was incredibly grateful.

“So?” Claude had asked Marianne as he bumped into her upon her return. “How did it all go? Is that some lipgloss I spy upon your cheek, hm?”

Marianne closed her eyes in an exasperated embarrassment. Claude chuckled, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Don't worry...” he mumbled. “You two will get to know each other even better throughout your time here – if only because you'll have to.”

Even though Marianne knew he was right, the time and the opportunities to get to know Hilda as more than just a cute acquaintance were seldom in appearance. Both out on the fields of training battles and inside the churches' hallowed halls, Marianne so often daydreamed of getting to have Hilda all to herself; after all, inside her imagination, Marianne von Edmund could be an unstoppable, suave, charming woman that was as self-assured as she was capable. Able to kiss and hold the woman she'd wanted to embrace for so long without qualms, Marianne at least felt happy being able to indulge in those kinds of thoughts.

-

The second time Marianne gets to spend a long time with Hilda was in the infirmary.

Over the few months it had taken to get to this point, the two of them had gotten a little closer. On days where Marianne felt confident enough, she'd say a passing greeting to Hilda, who always replied happily enough. On days where Hilda saw Marianne first, Marianne would be caught up by her into a one-sided conversation about nothing in particular, and Hilda's infectious enthusiasm for life had been just as catching as always.

But on this particular day, Marianne got to spend a long, long time at Hilda's side; because out on the middle of an escort mission towards the end of the school year, Marianne found that her imagination had run away too far with her concentration.

Training to become a Bishop, Marianne had always wanted to be very, _very_ far removed from the violence that the world currently had to offer. Healing was always enough for her. But it was especially enough to think that she could now successfully help Hilda, if she really wanted it. And on this particular day, during a very poorly timed choice to get lost in imagination, Marianne was daydreaming about kissing Hilda near to the gazebo area of Garreg Mach.

Standing with her amidst the flowers and in the throes of a warm dusk night, the thought of Hilda's soft hands resting on her shoulders and feeling her lips against her own was surely blissful. And to experience all this beneath a setting sun, too? Was there _anything_ better than that? Marianne thought not. She praised her mind internally, and always loved the warm sensation of basking in sunshine that it brought with its thoughts these days.

She was thankful for just how vivid of an imagination she had during these times. The thought of Hilda passionately kissing her, thanking her for waiting, for always thinking of her; and hey, if that imagination got a little more risque, who was Marianne to protest? _That_ was always a perfect thought.

And daydreaming too long about that in particular had promptly gotten her ending up with an arrowhead lodged in her shoulder.

“Agh!” she screamed, falling back onto the grassy field she had found herself in. The pain was searing. Her nerves had been sliced through abruptly, and a warm, red liquid had began to spurt out of the wound in a gorey, unpleasant mess. As the designated healer, Marianne could only heal herself if she could manage to stomach saying the incantation; which was something only seasoned professionals could truly do under such a sudden amount of pain.

“Marianne!” Hilda cried from the front of the pack, rushing backwards; and Marianne, despite her grit teeth, was at least touched to know that Hilda cared.

“Careful, everyone!” Claude announced, uncharacteristically panicked, and began shielding Marianne with his body as he leant over to pick her up. “We must finish this mission! Hilda, you escort Marianne back to Garreg Mach!”

“All the way to Garreg Mach?!” Hilda protested in a fluster. “Can't we – can't we stop to just -”

“If the enemy has already tried to take out our healer, we're just sitting ducks! Let's go, quickly!”

“Alright!” Hilda answered, and after much bobbing and weaving out of the pine trees that acted as a safety net for everybody involved, Hilda had managed to calmly bring Marianne back to the safe haven of Garreg Mach monastery; in mostly one piece.

Hilda, much to Marianne's suprise, was very gentle on the way back. She had placed her in front as they sat atop Hilda's horse; wrapping her arms around her waist, and propping her upright against her chest to stop too much blood from trickling out. Hilda was surprisingly unfazed by the sight of wounds, and for that, Marianne was extremely grateful. She chastised herself for not being able to experience the sensation of actually being this close to Hilda, before realizing how stupid she was to have gotten into this mess in the first place.

The two of them had gotten a little closer, at least by Marianne's hopeful standards, and Hilda, much to her surprise, felt the very same.

“God, what were you thinking?! Dilly-dallying around like that!” Hilda protested, dressing Marianne's wound herself, much to the displeasure of the Garreg Mach nurses. “Honestly! Have some more respect for yourself, Marianne!”

“S-Sorry...”

“I don't need your apologies, silly. I need you to pay attention when we're out on the field!”

Marianne, laying on the white sheets of the infirmary bed, found her hand held with a white-knuckle grip of Hilda's hand; and she thought privately to herself how, if Hilda was going to treat her like this every time something bad happened, she was almost grateful for the level of misfortune her life seemed to bring upon itself.

“I'm sorry...”

“There you go again, apologizing...” Hilda sighed. “Just think of it this way. If someone as lazy as me can survive out there, why can't you?”

 _Because I'm too busy thinking about you_ , Marianne thought with a closed mouth, but opted to say nothing. Hilda stroked her thumb over Marianne's knuckles, and for the first time in her life, Marianne thought she'd actually seen Hilda blush.

-

The third time Marianne gets to spend a particularly significant time at length with Hilda, the war has just ended.

To say that every time spent with Hilda wasn't significant felt like an insult, though. Marianne longed for those moments, more than anything else, to last longer than any moment ever possibly could. Over the years spent at each other's sides, they've been through it all as something more than friends but less than lovers. From the night terrors and the deep-rooted fears of dying to the jubilant, often premature drinking celebrations of the Golden Deers, it didn't take a genius to work out that Marianne von Edmund and Hilda Valentine Goneril were steadily falling in love with each other.

Hilda would always swing off of Marianne's neck when she'd had a little too much to drink. Marianne would blush profusely, still unchanging from her school days, but this time a little more confident in having her arms around Hilda – just keeping her steady and securely on her feet, is what she'd say to anyone trying to tease her – but everybody knew it was much more than that.

“You're soooo dang cute. Has anybody ever told you you're a cutie? Marianne. Are you listening?”

“H-Hilda, please...”

Hilda's breath always carried a sweet scent with it as it was, but especially after she'd been drinking. Marianne's eyelids fluttered as she felt Hilda's lips growing dangerously close to her own.

“They have, haven't they?” Hilda had replied with a sway against Marianne's body, and wagged her finger at her face. “* hic * Lemme at 'em.”

“Oh, Hilda...” Marianne laughed.

Hilda lazily swung around in Marianne's arms with an infectious, pure laughter of her own, and Marianne couldn't help but smile.

“Come on, you need to sleep off the booze.”

“Stay with me while I doooo.”

“A-Alright, alright...”

Marianne always did love those nights in particular. Nights where she'd get to hold an affectionate, loving Hilda in her arms; wrapped up in the comfortable, warm press of a rough blanket, and with a feather pillow beneath their heads, this felt like bliss all on its own. But to also have the sensation of Hilda; completely trusting and loving of Marianne's presence nestling gently into her chest was like heaven.

Sometimes, Marianne had a particularly difficult time getting through the night from the way she'd feel Hilda's lips grazing her neck as she buried her face subconsciously into her neck.

But on this particular night where it is a significant time for both Marianne and Hilda, the war has just ended. The Golden Deers had won it all, and miraculously, somehow, they had gotten through it in one piece.

Through all of their guidance to one another, all of their mutual support and encouragement had persevered on through; and now, Marianne and Hilda both knew that it was time for what they'd spent years wishing they could say to the other.

They both found themselves stood exactly where Marianne's imagination had always led her to; next to the gazebo, and beneath a beautiful, burning dusk, just as though her picturesque, vivid dream had come to life. The air carried with it, somehow, the scent of a new dawn beginning; a refreshing breeze that seemed to soothe the skin and the aching of battle scars.

“Beautiful night, isn't it?” Hilda asked; turning around to face Marianne as she stopped peering up at the sky. Marianne tried her best not to blush. She failed.

“Y...Yes, it is.”

“I can hardly believe we did it. We finally won...after all this time.”

“We all worked very hard to get to this point, Hilda.” Marianne replied, and Hilda smiled back at her with a warm expression.

“We did! Even _me_ , which is saying something.”

Marianne giggled into a dainty fist, and Hilda chuckled as she continued to hold her hands behind her back.

“You've always had the capacity to do wonderful things, you know...” Marianne answered, though even now, after all this time, she still couldn't quite look Hilda in the eye when she was being sentimental. “I knew you'd get there in the end, when you realized how much you cared for this place. And your comrades, of course.”

“That's true...” Hilda said thoughtfully; turning her gaze back up to the sky, and her back to Marianne. “Say, Mari...”

“Hm?”

“Do you love me?”

Marianne blinked.

At first, she honestly thought she'd misheard her. The winds, after all, were blowing quite strong this evening. The cheers from their friends in the distance were loud, too. _Surely,_ Marianne thought to herself, _Hilda did not just say what I think she said._

But a part of her was terrified to ask her to repeat it. Standing out here, in the midst of the gazebo's small field and the lining of the beautiful flowers around the edges, it was just like a daydream come to life. What if she really had asked her that kind of question? Was she asking it to gently turn Marianne down? Surely, that was the reason why. So did she lie? Did she tell the truth? Why _was_ she asking it?

There was only one way to find out; even it did mean the crushing of an imagination well spent.

“Um,” Marianne began quietly, tucking a strand of her light blue hair behind her ear in the ensuing breeze. “I'm sorry, c-could you -”

“You never change, do you...” Hilda interrupted with a girlish laughter, before turning around; and, as she did, Marianne found her breath taken away at the sight.

“Hilda...”

Marianne thought how she'd never, ever, in all the years she'd known Hilda Valentine Goneril, looked more beautiful than right now. Hilda _was_ actually _blushing_.

“Do you love me, Marianne?” Hilda repeated with a broad smile, and much to her irony, Marianne was too lovestruck to even answer the question.

Here, beneath the burning orange of the setting sun and all of the greying clouds above, Hilda's eyes were shimmering. Like diamonds or stars in the night sky, she looked beautiful. Her cheeks were a flush of pink, and her skin looked so clear and full of life that Marianne just wanted to kiss and touch every single inch of it. Her lips, too; the lips Marianne had spent entire lifetimes daydreaming about kissing; were now curved into a beautifully full grin.

“Do I love y...you?”

“Yes. Do you?”

“I do.”

Marianne covered her mouth with a gasp and a slap of her hands against her face; and her eyes widened so much that she couldn't believe she'd answered to calmly.

_Yes. Yes I do, Hilda. I love you with everything I have!_

“You do?!” Hilda answered with a gasp of her own; and Marianne felt her own cheeks scorching through her hands. “Oh, c'mon, Marianne, stop being all shy! I'm giving it my all here too, y'know!”

Hilda placed her hands gently on Marianne's wrists, who suddenly became quite rigid under her touch, and refused to move them away from her face. God, she was so embarrassed. It felt just like being a teenager all over again.

“H-Hilda!” Marianne answered in a muffled tone of voice from behind her hands, and squinted her eyes closed. “Please!”

“Come on, I want to kiss you!”

Marianne's rigidness suddenly began to give way; and, as Hilda successfully – and finally – managed to move her wrists away, Marianne's mouth hung slightly open as she stared on in amazement.

“You...” Marianne began, before dropping her gaze to look away. “You want to _kiss_ me...?”

“Yes!” Hilda answered in an affectionate exasperation, laughing bashfully after her voice echoed into the empty gazebo area. The flowers around them were still blooming into their vivid, muted colours of the dusk; and the overwhelming smells of floral decorum begna to fill the air with another gentle night breeze. “I've been trying to get you to kiss me for months!”

“You have?!”

“Yes! God, how dense are you with girls?!” Hilda answered a second time, and this time, the laughter that accompanied it was a little louder. “Do you really think I'd sleep in the same bed with someone I just wanted to be _friends_ with?! Why do you think I kept on letting my lips rest against your neck for nights on end!”

“You weren't asleep when you did that?!” Marianne shrieked, and Hilda tilted her head back and laughed. “I-I always thought you were just - just drunk and unconscious...!”

“Mariaaanne, come on! Stop being so obtuse and just kiss me already!”

“You don't want to kiss me!” Marianne answered quickly, in a fluster that took both herself and Hilda right back to when they were teenagers. Hilda placed her hands on her hips in a very matter-of-fact position.

“And just _why_ would I not want to do that?”

 _You idiot!_ Marianne thought through the blind panic. _Don't give your crush reasons to not kiss you!_

“B...Because!”

“I'm supposed to deny myself a kiss from you just 'because'?”

Marianne shook her head vigorously. One half of her was screaming at her to stop being such a blithering fool, and blowing the one chance she might have with Hilda Valentine Goneril, the love of her life, the love of _all_ of her lives, right here at the very place she'd always dreamed of. The other half of her wanted to run away screaming from the very real possibility – no, the very real realization that Marianne had just come to that she was incredibly in love.

“No, because...! Because I'm awkward, and clumsy, and I can't -”

Closing the gap faster than Marianne could even register, Hilda took matters into her own hands; and, wrapping her arms around Marianne's neck, she finally did exactly what the two of them had been wanting to do for so many years.

They kissed.

At first, Marianne was taken aback in such a way that she could barely register what was going on. So many sensations and scents and sounds; so many different ways she had to take in that were just making her love Hilda all the more. Her perfume was so overwhelming this close up when not infused with the scent of beer, just like the nights she'd held Hilda in her drunken stupors; and the sensation of her lips felt so good that it sent a feeling to the very pit of her stomach that made Marianne have to cross her legs.

Her eyes, wide with surprise, saw a blurry version of Hilda's face up close as she pressed her lips to Marianne's own; before, resigning to the fact that she was just like anyone else in love and unable to escape her fate, her eyelids flickered closed.

Marianne's arms wrapped themselves around Hilda's waist warmly as they stood, and every nerve ending in her body, mind and heart couldn't believe it. She was living a dream. A dream that, at one point, had almost cost her the price of living, back when the arrow shot into her arm; and now, here, with the war at an end and Hilda's heart voluntarily out into the open, Marianne felt so happy she could cry.

The sensation of Hilda's corset against her fingertips felt warm, and a little rough around the edges; battlescarred and ripped from the various weapons that had been used to try and strike her down, Marianne's touches were not lost on her. Hilda could feel, even in the midst of their first kiss, how grateful Marianne was that she was alive; how grateful and happy she was that neither of them had died in the middle of this war, and certainly above all else, as their lips moved in a perfect, tender sync, just how ecstatic she was that Hilda had finally made the first move.

Hilda's lips tasted just like Marianne had imagined so many times that they would; a little sweet and also a little sticky from the subtle hints of make-up she somehow always had access to. But even here, even in the midst of the embarrassment and the rush of a first kiss, Marianne already knew.

She wanted more. She wanted it all. She wanted Hilda Valentine Goneril in all of her forms; happy, sad, angry, in love, and any more emotions that she had to show the rest of the world.

“I do love you.”

In between a breath that Hilda took from kissing Marianne's lips, she also found that breath laced with a gasp.

“Mari?”

“Hilda, I...” Marianne began; holding Hilda's body as close to her as she possibly could without feeling like her face was going to fall off from how hot her cheeks were burning. Her eyes still averted Hilda's gaze; she still couldn't quite do that, not yet; but her lips moved against Hilda's own as she spoke. “I do love you. I've...I really have always loved you, you know. I never thought in a million years you'd like somebody like me.”

“You're so silly,” Hilda whispered, and Marianne's heart fluttered. “You really don't do yourself enough credit, y'know.”

“How do you mean?”

“I'm really not that hard to please, Marianne. I just need a lifetime supply of affection and pastries to be _truly_ happy. And, lucky for you, I deigned you the appropriate person for the job.”

Marianne laughed bashfully as Hilda grinned at her, and felt her heart thudding even harder as Hilda's fingertips tilted her chin upwards.

Her gaze was forced to meet with Hilda's own at that moment, and that was something that she was always going to be eternally grateful for; because now, with her eyes meeting with the woman she'd so longed to look into the gaze of for so long, Hilda began to say exactly what Marianne longed for her to say in the very first place.

“Marianne,” she began, “I – ugh, this feels so lame. But...I just don't know what to do with myself when I'm around you.”

“You don't?”

“No! You make me feel so many different things...” Hilda continued, and Marianne felt as though her head would never stop spinning. “Worry, happiness, longing, attachment...and then I began to think on those feelings far too much for it to be anything other than what it is."

“And what is it...?” Marianne tentatively asked. Hilda was the one who found her gaze faltering ever so slightly; before eventually, both women had the courage to look at each other beneath the warm sky above.

“Love,” Hilda confessed with a bright smile that almost shot another arrow through Marianne, and this time, it was through an already arrow-stuffed heart. “I love you, Marianne. That's the conclusion I reached, and I always get what I want, so...I hope you're in for the long haul. You can't escape from me now!”

Marianne paused as Hilda chuckled bashfully, and threw her arms around Marianne's neck a little harder as she buried her face into the crook of her neck. Marianne allowed her heart to thud, and she allowed her arms to tightly hold Hilda close to her; but really, the most joyous thing about all of this to her, was that she finally, truly allowed herself to smile.

This was everything she could have ever wanted. Hilda Valentine Goneril was everything she'd ever wanted. And now, stood here in the midst of her favourite daydream turned reality, Marianne suddenly experienced something entirely new to her for the first time in her life.

Because all throughout the years of longing for Hilda to be at her side, through all of the times she'd forced herself into the training for being a Bishop, all of the unwanted attempts of people trying to make her come out of her shell, and certainly, all of the loneliness she'd felt whenever Hilda wasn't around, Marianne von Edmund finally realized what Hilda could give her that nobody else ever had.

Optimism. Happiness. A singing heart; and, as Hilda kissed Marianne's cheek again, just as she had done on the very first time they had found themselves spending time together in that dusty, over-filled library, Marianne von Edmund could hardly believe that an apprehension for life had so quickly switched to be a desperation to see just what was going to come next.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to follow me on twitter over [@gloomhoarder](http://www.twitter.com/gloomhoarder)! thank you! ♥


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